Monday, May 15, 2006

Immigrants are liberal, and their kids move farther left: Mainstream Republicans face a conflict in that they love immigrants but hate liberals. The data show that many immigrants come here liberal and have children who become even more liberal. I calculated the mean conservative score for each immigrant group and listed them below. If the score is less than 4.12, this means the immigrants are more liberal than native-born Americans:

You can see that 13 of the 18 groups are more liberal than Americans. White immigrants from Catholic countries tend to be conservative. It might surprise you to see that Mexican immigrants are conservative, but this changes dramatically among Mexicans born here. This list below give conservative scores for the American born:

Republicans claim that immigrants may come here liberal, but as they assimilate, they will move right. Wrong. Looking at people born here, 12 out of 18 groups are more liberal than the average American. The only two conservative non-white groups are Filipinos and Arabs, and the latter group has that whole terrorism thing going against it.

So most groups end up liberal, but they came here liberal, so maybe they have moved right, but just not enough yet to make it to the conservative column. Wrong again. This list shows movement among immigrants: a positive number shows a right-ward movement between first generation immigrants and those born here, and a negative number indicates a move to the left.

Eleven out of 18 groups have gotten more liberal. And the largest immigrant group by far--Mexicans--made a huge move to the left. Evidently, Mexicans are not following the historical immigrant path of assimilation, but are opting for the black strategy of liberalism and group rights. And Republican elites want 'em to keep on comin'. And that little trick of using a guest worker program to keep them from being able to vote is not going to work long-term either. Sam Francis had it right in calling them the "Stupid Party."

1 comment:

Mexican immigrants and I think also the next generation tend to be very socially conservative and fiscally liberal. Note the vote last year on the TX gay marriage amendment - almost 70% voted down gay marriage for the state, and Hispanics overwhelmingly rejected it. I know a Democratic fundraiser here who is hopeless about the future of the party in TX because the white Dems in TX are so socially liberal but the hispanics are socially conservative. She doesn't think the party is viable anymore.

However, the same Mexicans are very fiscally liberal, paying high taxes without a peep, embracing boondoggle "affordable housing" ventures at the municipal level, and joining labor unions when they can.

I think long term this stuff spells disaster for TX. In 20 years it will be like a homophobic California.

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